<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">[Apologies for cross-posting]</span></div><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><font size="4" class=""><br class=""></font></div><font size="4" class="">********** 3nd Call for Papers **********</font><span style="font-size: 16px;" class=""></span><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><font size="4" class="">Special session - H</font></span><font size="4" class="">ybrid Life: Approaches to integrate biological, artificial and cognitive systems</font></b></div><span class=""><br class=""></span><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life/" class="">https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life/</a></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><font size="4" class="">2018 Artificial Life conference (ALife)</font><br class=""></div><div class=""><h4 style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: rgb(42, 42, 42);" class=""><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="">Tokyo, JAPAN, 23-27 July 2018 - <a href="http://2018.alife.org/" style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">http://2018.alife.org/</a></span></h4><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Invited panelists: <strong style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-style: inherit; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; font-size: 16px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Ryota Kanai, </strong><strong style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-style: inherit; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; font-size: 16px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Jun Tani, </strong><font size="3" class=""><b class="">Masahiko Inami and </b><b class="">Mizuki Oka</b></font><strong class="" style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-style: inherit; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; font-size: 16px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; box-sizing: border-box;">.</strong></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">------------------------------<wbr class="">------------------------------<wbr class="">------------------------------<wbr class="">---</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><b class="">DESCRIPTION:</b></div><div class=""><span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;" class=""><font size="2" class="">The main focus of ALife research is the study of natural systems with the goal of understanding what life is. More concretely, ALife defines ways to investigate processes that contribute to the formation and proliferation of living organisms. In this session we focus on three common approaches to tackle this investigation, proposing ways to integrate, extend and possibly improve them. More specifically we refer to: 1) the formalisation of the necessary properties for the definition of life, 2) the implementation of artificial agents, and 3) the study of the relation between life and cognition.</font></span></div><div class=""><span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;" class=""><font size="2" class=""><br class=""></font></span></div><div class=""><span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33); orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;" class=""><font size="2" class="">For this special session we propose to start from these well-established Alife methodologies, and extend them through:</font></span></div><div class=""><span class=""><ul class=""><li class=""><font size="2" class="">a unified formal language for the description and modelling of living, as well as artificial and cognitive systems, e.g. control theory, Bayesian inference, dynamical systems theory, etc.,</font></li><li class=""><font size="2" class="">the exploration of biological creatures enhanced by artificial systems (or artificial systems augmented with organic parts) in order to investigate the boundaries between living and nonliving organisms, and</font></li><li class=""><font size="2" class="">the evaluation of coupled biological-artificial systems that could shed light on the importance of interactions among systems for the study of living and cognitive organisms.</font></li></ul></span><div class=""><span style="font-size: small; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;" class="">This special sessions aims to invite contributions from the fields of psychology, computational neuroscience, HCI, theoretical biology, artificial intelligence, robotics and cognitive science to discuss current research on the formalisation, combination and interaction of artificial/living/cognitive systems from theoretical, modelling and implementational perspectives.</span></div></div><div class=""><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-ligatures: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; position: relative; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); line-height: 1.56; padding-top: 16px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;" class=""><span style="font-size: small;" class="">Potential topics include, but are not limited to:</span></div><ul class=""><li class="">Formalisation of life and cognition (e.g. dynamical systems theory, stochastic optimal control, Bayesian inference, etc.)</li><li class="">Cognitive robotics</li><li class="">Autopoiesis</li><li class="">Life-mind continuity thesis</li><li class="">Systems biology</li><li class="">Origins-of-life theories with relationships to artificial and cognitive systems</li><li class="">Animal-robot interaction</li><li class="">Bio-inspired robotics</li><li class="">Bio-integrated robotics</li><li class="">Human-machine interaction</li><li class="">Augmented cognition</li><li class="">Sensory substitution</li><li class="">Interactive evolutionary computation</li><li class="">Artificial perception</li></ul><div class=""><b class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">PANELISTS:</b></div><div class=""><b class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br class=""></b></div><span class=""><b class="">Ryota Kanai</b><br class="">Ryota Kanai is a neuroscientist working on the computational principles underlying consciousness and the brain, and the founder and CEO of an AI startup, Araya, Inc. in Tokyo. His goal is to create artificial consciousness using intrinsic motivation, deep neural networks, and integrated information while taking inspirations from neuroscience. He formerly led a cognitive neuroscience lab at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.<br class="">Araya Inc.: </span><a href="http://www.araya.org/" class="">http://www.araya.org/</a></div><div class=""><a href="http://www.araya.org/" class=""><br class=""></a><span class=""><b class="">Jun Tani</b><br class="">Jun Tani is a Full Professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Okinawa, Japan. He is directing the Cognitive Neurorobotics Research Unit. He has investigated the problem of embodied cognition by applying the predictive coding framework to neurorobotics experimental study for more than 20 years. His study has been summarized in his book, “Exploring Robotic Minds: Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena." published from Oxford Univ. Press in 2016.<br class="">CNRU at OIST: </span><a href="https://groups.oist.jp/cnru" class="">https://groups.oist.jp/cnru</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><span class=""><b class="">Masahiko Inami</b><br class="">Masahiko (Masa) Inami is a Professor in the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, Japan. He is also directing the Inami JIZAI Body Project, JST ERATO. His research interest is in Augmented Human, human I/O enhancement technologies including perception, HCI and robotics. He received BE and MS degrees in bioengineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and PhD in the Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) from the University of Tokyo in 1999. He joined the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Tokyo, and in 1999, he moved to the University of Electro-Communications. In April 2008, he joined Keio University, where he served as a Professor of the Graduate School of Media Design and the Vice-director of the International Virtual Reality Center till October 2015. In November 2015, he rejoined the University of Tokyo. His installations have appeared at Ars Electronica Center. He proposed and organized the Superhuman Sports Society. <br class="">InamiLab at Todai: </span><a href="https://inamilab.org" class="">https://inamilab.org</a><span class=""> <br class=""><br class=""><b class="">Mizuki Oka</b><br class="">Mizuki Oka is an associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Obtained the International Baccalaureate at the United World College of the Adriatic in 1998. Studied computer science at the University of Tsukuba where she obtained the Doctor of Engineering in 2008. Served also as a research fellow for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science from 2005 to 2008. Worked at the Center for Knowledge Structuring at the University of Tokyo as a post-doc from 2008 to 2013 in Japan. Gave a talk at TEDxTokyo in 2012 and at TEDxTsukuba in 2013. Her current research interests are Web Science and Artificial Life. She is also a founder of ALife Lab. and CO-CEO of Alternative Machine Inc.<br class="">Personal website: </span><a href="http://mizoka.jp/english/" class="">http://mizoka.jp/english/</a><span class=""><br class=""></span><span class=""><br class=""><br class=""></span><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><b class="">Important Dates<br class=""></b></div><div class=""><ul class=""><li style="margin-left: 15px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">19</span><font size="2" class="">th</font><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""> March 2018 – Paper submission deadline</span><br class=""></li><li style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 15px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">23</span><font size="2" class="">rd</font><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""> April 2018 – Paper acceptance notification</span></li><li style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 15px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">21st May 2018 – Camera-ready version</span></li><span class=""><li style="margin-left: 15px;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">23-27th July 2018 – </span><font size="2" class="">Artificial Life conference (ALife)</font><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">, Tokyo, Japan</span></li></span></ul><span class=""><div class=""><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" class=""><br class=""></span></div></span><div style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 12.8px;" class=""><b class="">Paper Submission</b></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 12.8px;" class=""><p class="">Papers and abstracts submitted to this special sessions will be reviewed by a selected group of experts from the a-life community as well as from other areas key to our proposal, specifically chosen for this review process. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class="">If you are submitting to a special session you will be given the opportunity to select it during the submission process. Submissions to special sessions follow the same format, instructions and deadlines of regular ALife papers, as specified here </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><a href="http://2018.alife.org/instructions-for-authors/" class="">http://2018.alife.org/instructions-for-authors/</a></span>.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 12.8px;" class=""><b class="">Organizers<br class=""></b></div><p style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 12.8px;" class=""></p><ul style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><li style="margin-left: 15px;" class=""><font class="">Manuel Baltieri, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. </font><a href="mailto:m.baltieri@sussex.ac.uk" class="">m.baltieri@sussex.ac.uk</a><br class=""></li><li style="margin-left: 15px;" class=""><font class="">Keisuke Suzuki, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. </font><a href="mailto:filippo.m.bianchi@uit.no" target="_blank" class="">k.suzuki@sussex.ac.uk</a></li><li style="margin-left: 15px;" class="">Hiroyuki Iizuka, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan <a href="mailto:hiroyukiiizuka@gmail.com" class="">hiroyukiiizuka@gmail.com</a></li></ul><div class=""><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" class=""><b class="">Contacts</b></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" class="">For questions, enquiries and more information please check our website </span><span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" class=""><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life/" class="">https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life/</a> or get in touch with Manuel <a href="mailto:m.baltieri@sussex.ac.uk" class="">m.baltieri@sussex.ac.uk</a>.</span></div></div></div></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">All the best,</div><div class="">
<div style="letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Manuel, Keisuke, Hiro</div><div style="font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class=""></body></html>